Lightstalkers Update

Many of you have been writing in about the technical problems Lightstalkers has faced lately. Here’s an update for all of you.

The most severe bug we’ve seen is the “cascading delete” issue. In April of this year, I had fixed a long-standing issue, where some of you were unable to delete images (and consequently were not able to delete your own profiles). This was successful, but a regression happened. In some cases, requesting an image deletion would cause a cascading deletion, and the app would delete the image’s User profile. It’s impossible for us to know how many people this affected, because our system is not mature enough to include audit records. I’ve been able to restore some profiles, and in those cases have contacted you about it. If you lost a profile and haven’t been contacted, it’s because your data’s not recoverable. It’s truly unfortunate and I apologize.

In general, Lightstalkers is like any modern Web application: It depends on a number of external services and APIs for its core functionality to work, and it runs atop Amazon’s elastic EC2 service. This is a tradeoff: We have an efficient and flexible architecture, but it also requires constant monitoring and tweaking. Each of those services can fail, or change on the other side; EC2 itself has a spotty record when it comes to uptime. The reality is that a service like this continually needs human developers to maintain and extend it, and we don’t have any at this time.

For several years, I did all of the development, bookkeeping, operations, and customer service for Lightstalkers, and like all good things, this era has come to an end. It’s been fun, and difficult, and extremely gratifying to work for all of you. I have huge respect for the work you do and the risks you take, and I truly hope to find new ways to support this community in the future. Now, however, my role has ended.

My sincere regret is that I did not act on this realization one or two years ago, and begin building a transition plan which would have saved you from recent stresses. If I am ever lucky enough to find myself in this situation again, I will know better. My last act will be to help Teru, Balazs, and the rest of the November Eleven team a new technology team, and to watch them build Lightstalkers into its next great phase.

I’ve been a member since 06 and although my postings have been but a few, I’ve gain lots of information, entertainment, and great food-for-thought from your hands-on support and enabling of this great site. Much appreciation to you & thumps-up!

So brother Shinji, first of all i want to wish all the best in your future endeavors and thanks for the support/programing and blood-giving you’ve done for LS and November Eleven…

I will also wish to express, would Teru want it any other way, my disappointment and regret for what has happened. I take my own blame for not storing/copying much of the data and posts and information and writing that I’ve housed here in the last 6 1/2 years. Since no one has called me, I now assume that my original page/contacts/writing/posts/data/addresses/PM’s are all gone….

I can’t say that I am profoundly disappointed and upset, particularly because it was an editor who’d contacted me this summer to tell me my page was gone. As both a vocal, emotional and financial supporter of Lighstalkers, i am really saddened by this.

I rarely (in public or private) express disapppointment or get upset but after all the emotion and time and $$ donated i am very disappointed….

i’d never thought i’d have every thought i’d regretted investment or time spent…

by the way, my frustration is not with Shinji per se, i take full responsibility for not backing up my writing or my data, but just that after all the support (time/emotional and financial), i’d hoped for a better communication stream…..for a long time, Shinji has been a powerlifter of 1, the man behind the curtain that supported so many of us, pros and amateurs alike….

anyway, the harshness tembre of my note above is probably a reflection of the time and investment and work done supporting ls and our community and members….

so the life of the web: not real, not real, not real

thanks and i’ll try to figure some way to recover some of the writing from the Web cache: if anyone knows how i can do this, please feel free to email me after september 6…now, i’m off to NC…..

Bob, I noted that, if I did a Google search in my name and added Lightstalkers, I could recover all the information in my former profile by clicking on the “cached” heading. But it does not easily allow you to recover all the things you wrote (though I did find some of those things).

I made two friends from foreign countries and had a lot of interesting interchange of thoughts. So, many thanks for let us share and discuss in this place. Very curious about what will happen with Lightstalkers 2.0. Saludos

I recall someone in an earlier post about the value of Lightstalkers who was profoundly grateful to LS because it was directly responsible for him getting laid.

No kidding!

Thanks, Shinji. I feared things would come to this. How could any person be the whole kahuna for years and years without losing interest/burning out. Please stick with the program until things can be transitioned. I am going to try to find some entity that would be willing to take on the management of the site. Don’t know whether I will be successful, but I will try.

this will be quick…as i’m about to head out for a late afternoon boogie board surf (does the soul good) in Folly Bch….anyway, just to clarify:

SHINJI: man, you’ve done youre more than required powersquatting keeping this site alive and going under duress and financial responsibility and for dealing generally with the rowdy and underappreciative behavior of many, and i salute you and don’t blame you for anything…sorry if my first rant (just frustrated) came off as pissy….my own fault for now backing up….any 1st platoon sgt would have royally kicked my white behind for failure of basic operational orders…so, again, thannks for all you did for all of us these last, what 8 years? :))))

for teru, sara and all the rest who’ve written, thanks so much for the words and links…i’ll mine the hell out of the caches and get all that stuff….my fault, and will find it all and make a note, for sure, in the book’s acknowledgments….

Teru: above all brother, y’all rock….keep that young skywalker Teja in charge :)))

not saying an exorcism still isn’t called for ;))…but a bit of re-birth after a week at the sea with wife and son and just wind, palms, cicadas, surf…words, books, silence….and also, not perfect, but 1st post reflected more the pressure i was under for completing the book (still under that pressure) and trying to get something for a magazine that will be publishing another long series of pics upcoming….i was just frustrated by the lack of response last week after trying to get information for weeks….and that’s about as ‘upset’ as i usually get, unless its someone attacking the family…..

lesson learned: rely on self and backup material i write or post on the www …..typically i’ve been among the first to go over the wall for LS and will do anything for Teru et co…..just stress from lack of response, but anger for me last about as long as it takes to uncork of bottle of wine or mix a Dark & Stormy….

who knows with the web, maybe i need that bit of bitter spit to get the tast of carolina red rice :)))…